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11th August 2009 Archive

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  • US civil liberties gang questions Obama cookie plan

    Fed website 'sea change'

    A proposal to loosen restrictions on the use of tracking cookies by federal government websites should be carefully scrutinized so they don't jeopardize the privacy of people who visit them, groups advocating civil liberties warned Monday. The American Civil Liberties Union said the proposal, floated July 24 by the White House …

    Government 11 Aug 00:30

  • Microsoft's web Office: No love for Chrome, Opera

    (not to mention IE6)

    If your browser-of-choice is Google Chrome or Opera, don't expect much love from Microsoft's upcoming Office Web Apps, scheduled to appear along with Office 2010 next year. Last October, when Redmond announced its upcoming suite of browser-based competition to Google Docs and Spreadsheets et al., it said that Office Web Apps …

    Applications 11 Aug 00:34

  • VMware buys cloud army with SpringSource cash deal

    Application management payoff

    VMware is buying open-source Java framework specialist SpringSource in the virtualization giant's biggest ever corporate acquisition. The company said its proposed $362m cash deal would give it the in-house talent to make its vSphere virtualization hypervisor and management layer work with cloud applications. SpringSource has …

    Applications 11 Aug 02:51

  • Blogger silences Google ads with death and destruction

    Gmail's inner prude

    If nothing else, it's sure to amuse Steve Ballmer. The Microsoft chieftain has been known to turn his nose up at the way Google targets ads on its Gmail service, accusing his bete noire of reading your email. Google does in fact read your email - or at least, Google machines do - and there's nothing you can do about it. Short …

    Odds and Sods 11 Aug 03:44

  • Vodafone looks for Magic applications

    Just provide an idea, and legal indemnity

    Vodafone is looking for ideas to develop as Android applications, with 10 HTC Magic handsets for the top ideas, plus a prize of £1000 and a promise to develop the very best one. The Magic is an Android-based handset, and Vodafone is hoping to sell the handset on the basis of the applications available for it - something Apple …

    Mobile 11 Aug 08:02

  • IT recruiter dodges downturn

    Offshoring offsets fall in jobs

    IT recruitment agency Harvey Nash saw a five per cent decline in gross profits in the first six months of this year, but said it maintained revenues thanks to growth in offshoring work. The agency expects revenues in line with last year and a gross profit of £2m for the half year ended 31 July. In a statement to the Stock …

    IT Director 11 Aug 08:14

  • Kingston specs up SSD series

    V line upgraded to V+

    Kingston has rolled out its latest 'value' SSDs, in the process upping its SSD Now series to V+. The memory specialist is offering a 64GB drive now, but expects to have 128GB and 256GB models out in September. Kingston's SSD Now V+: fast reading, relatively slow writing All of them are laptop-friendly 2.5in units with a …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 08:50

  • Nexsan and Falconstor outspin Data Domain

    Doubling up for MAID dedupe

    Power-saving storage array vendor Nexsan is teaming with FalconStor to build a Data Domain-beating deduplicating array. Nexsan offers storage using AutoMAID - Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks - in which drives can be powered down through three increasing levels of power-saving, from a head park through slower rotation to …

    Storage 11 Aug 08:55

  • What should mySociety do next?

    Get your thinking caps on, people

    The founder of mySociety is calling on Reg readers to suggest future projects for the organisation to pursue. It has run similar competitions twice before which resulted in WriteToThem - an easy way to contact your MP, MEP or councillor, and WhatDoTheyKnow - which now accounts for one in ten Freedom of Information requests. …

    Government 11 Aug 09:02

  • Sony Ericsson preparing netbook launch?

    Following Nokia

    Sony Ericsson appears set to launch a netbook. Sorry, smartbook - the phone firm's micro laptop seems likely to be as much phone as portable PC. There's not much else to add, alas. SE hasn't, of course, said anything. The claim comes from a "reliable" Taiwanese mole cited by Netbooknews.com. The source had no other information …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 09:09

  • Torrents and physical ownership score high for music fans

    Might stop freetarding if something decent comes along

    Music collections and physical recordings still matter, even to younger "digital natives" who aren't supposed to care about such things, a new British music survey suggests. The research highlights the growing popularity of P2P services, although this may be brittle - if something better and legal comes along. The survey, by …

    Music and Media 11 Aug 09:38

  • Boffins test cancer-stinging 'nano-bee' swarms in mice

    No risk of zombie-plague side effects, seemingly

    American medi-boffins say they have developed a way of using tiny nanotech devices, which they call "nanobees", to carry a potentially poisonous drug safely into the body for the purposes of killing cancerous tumours. The "bees" are so-called - as opposed to being named "nanowasps" or "nanocobras" or whatever - because the the …

    Biology 11 Aug 09:40

  • Ofcom wants to know what you want to know

    Watchdog plays nice

    Ofcom is asking the public what information it would like to know, and how it should go about sharing it. But the UK regulator won't be sharing anything that upsets the mobile network operators, so no change there. When it comes to wireless communications Ofcom has all the data: locations and frequencies of transmitters, how …

    Mobile 11 Aug 09:55

  • Vulture 1: Calling all electronics wizards

    Also, anyone got a hypobaric chamber?

    Well, it's all go here at the PARIS programme headquarters, and we've spent the last 24 hours pondering the sticky issue of how to release Vulture 1 from the weather balloon which will carry it aloft in summer 2010. More on that in a bit, but first thanks very much to all of you who chipped in with suggestions regarding the …

    Space 11 Aug 10:19

  • HP makes Ocarina music

    Ocarina close to clean sweep of filer vendors

    HP and its channel partners are going to resell Ocarina's unique image-aware deduplication to its customers, along with HP NAS arrays. Ocarina's deduplication software works on various image format files, such as JPEGs, MPEGs and TIFFs, that other deduplication products can make no impression on. HP and Ocarina say up to ten …

    Storage 11 Aug 10:35

  • Tourist magnet blows off Speedo-wearing men

    Skimpy pants? No Submission for you, Sir

    Alton Towers, the UK's biggest tourist attraction, has balked at the corrupting spectacle of men in skimpy swimming trunks, and has threatened offenders with compulsory bikini line waxing. The Staffs-based theme park has slapped a ban on Speedos and similar garments at its water park, in a bid to maintain its "family friendly …

    Bootnotes 11 Aug 10:46

  • Autistic trucking scam hacker jailed for 55 months

    Quality of mercy

    A convicted hacker with Asperger’s Syndrome has been given a slightly reduced sentence of 55 months imprisonment over his involvement in a multi-million dollar trucking scam. The judges' scant degree of leniency in dealing with an Asperger's sufferer will be closely watched by supporters of Pentagon hacker, Gary McKinnon. …

    Crime 11 Aug 10:58

  • Is Gordon Brown safe to work with vulnerable people?

    Opinion Gov silent on whether PM cleared for voluntary work

    Number 10 refused to say this week if Gordon Brown will be subjected to the CRB checks his government has imposed on the rest of us ahead of the "voluntary" work he will be doing in his constituency as part of his over-spun staycation. Details of what he will be doing, or what organisations he intends to work with are …

    Government 11 Aug 11:02

  • Dealer details slimline PS3 launch

    Out next month?

    Following months of speculation and the publication of a few blurred pictures, a videogame dealer has claimed that Sony will launch a slimline PlayStation 3 within weeks. The anonymous dealer said that “the PS3 Slim is a reality” and that it’ll “soon emerge”, possibly during September. The mole warned French website JVN that …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 11:05

  • Lenovo parent plots sale

    And by parent, we mean China.gov

    The Chinese Academy of Sciences Holding Company - an investment arm of the Chinese government - is looking to sell half its majority stake in PC and server maker Lenovo. CAS Holdings owns 65 per cent of Legend - the holding company behind Lenovo, but wants to flog a 29 per cent stake in the firm if it can find a suitable buyer …

    Channel Register 11 Aug 11:10

  • Noxious algae menace Brittany beaches

    Gas local horse, locals kick up a stink

    Environmentalists and locals staged a protest last weekend on the beach at St-Michel-en-Grève in Brittany, after noxious algae killed a local vet's horse and very nearly did for him too. Vincent Petit, 27, was dragged unconscious from a metre-deep patch of sludge, after his mount succumbed to fumes from the rotting greenery. …

    Biology 11 Aug 11:11

  • Google web search given shot of Caffeine

    Developers urged to look for fish in the percolator

    Google has lifted the lid on the next-generation web search architecture it’s been quietly working on for the past few months. Mountain View is opening up a web preview of the new search functionality and design it has been building, that carries the moniker “Caffeine”. It said the new code would help the company “push the …

    Applications 11 Aug 11:11

  • Apple promises MacBook Pro drive bug fix

    Patch coming soon

    Apple has confirmed it's working on an software fix to appease MacBook Pro owners who've been complaining their new machines beep unexpectedly and suffer recurring temporary freezes. The issue appears to specifically affect MacBook Pros fitted with 7200rpm 500GB hard drives and is thought to centre on code that's causing the …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 11:20

  • Half-ton space watermelon hints at habitable Martian past

    NASA droid probe sniffs at rusty fallen star

    An unusual object recently found on Mars by a NASA robot - said to be "the size of a large watermelon" and to weigh a "half ton or more" - is thought by boffins to provide proof that the Red Planet once had a much denser atmosphere than it does now. Robot rovers and Martian meteorites: the new rock and roll The so-called " …

    Space 11 Aug 11:51

  • Campaign Monitor reels from hack and spam attack

    Australian mail marketing firm stumped

    Australian email marketing application developers Campaign Monitor warned on Tuesday that it had been the victim of a hacking attack over the weekend. Unidentified miscreants broke into servers last weekend and accessed some accounts. These compromised accounts were used to send spam, using lists already in the account and …

    Spam 11 Aug 12:01

  • How to hack a Sony Reader

    Inside the Linux-based e-book viewer

    Amazon’s Kindle receives plenty of publicity, but it’s only available in the US. Book buffs elsewhere have to content themselves with other e-book readers, of which one of the most popular is the Sony Reader. The PRS-505 is available from High Street stores like John Lewis and Waterstones, making it one of the more visible …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 12:02

  • Manchester switch vendor gets $16m funding

    Virtualisation startup lands C-round gold

    Virtensys, the maker of I/O virtualising PCIe switches, has landed $16m (£9.7m)of C-round funding. VirtenSys was founded in December 2005, as a fabless semi-conductor company, with many people in its team of developers coming from Xyratex's Integrated System Division. It is based in Manchester, UK, and has offices in Beaverton …

    Storage 11 Aug 12:07

  • Perseid meteor shower set to dazzle disappoint

    Annual triumph of hope over experience

    The annual Perseid meteor lightshow will peak sometime tomorrow as Earth passes through the debris trail of comet Swift-Tuttle, but we're not taking any chances this year and are predicting total disappointment for those of you hoping to catch an eyeful. According to the BBC, the best times (not) to see the Perseids in the UK …

    Space 11 Aug 12:10

  • Texting makes kids faster and dumber

    Think fast, but inaccurately, thanks to T9

    Predictive text is making kids lazy and inaccurate and the collapse of civilisation can only be prevented by bringing back multi tap. The idea that using predictive text is making kids more impulsive and less patient is apparently borne out by a study from Professor Michael Abramson of Monash University, Melbourne, Australia …

    Mobile 11 Aug 12:21

  • Texting makes kids more error prone, study finds

    Encourages impulsive behaviour, apparently

    Yesterday, we learned that text messaging is supposedly good for the English language. But now a study has discovered that kids who text are more likely to be error-prone and impulsive. A study conducted in Australia of 317 kids, each aged between 11 and 14, found that 25 per cent of them regularly sent between 15 and 20 texts …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 13:00

  • Two convicted for refusal to decrypt data

    Up to five years in jail after landmark prosecutions

    Two people have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide authorities with their encryption keys, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years. The government said today it does not know their fate. The power to force people to unscramble their data was granted to …

    Policing 11 Aug 13:17

  • Pirate Bay sinks under electric storm

    Website goes titsup day after Dutch court verdict

    The Pirate Bay website has been knocked offline due to what it claims to be a power failure. On Monday a Dutch court temporarily banned the infamous BitTorrent tracker site's activities in the Netherlands, following legal action brought by the pro-copyright lobby outfit Stichting Brein in late July. A judge ordered TPB's …

    Music and Media 11 Aug 13:46

  • A Geeks Guide2 ...Windows 7 Unleashed

    40% discount at Reg Books

    Geeks Guide2 Although Windows 7 doesn't hit the shops until October 22, the first specialist Windows 7 books are now starting to arrive. This week's Geeks Guide focuses on the first book to the market - Microsoft Windows 7 Unleashed. Unleashed is aimed well and truly at IT pros, power users, and those of us who like to fiddle …

    Developer 11 Aug 14:00

  • 15in MacBook Pro gains anti-glare

    Sunglasses not required

    Apple has taken some of the shine off its MacBook Pro range, by offering a 15in model with an anti-glare screen. Until now, only the 17in MacBook Pro allowed customers to opt for a matte display rather than a glossy one, but now buyers of the 15in model can get the same feature. The option isn’t available for the 13in MacBook …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 14:04

  • System sales might have hit bottom

    Avnet and Arrow are hopeful

    The two key master distributors of servers and storage, Avnet and Arrow Electronics, reported their financial results for their most recent quarters. Both companies are hoping that the server market has finally hit bottom. Avnet Avnet closed out its fiscal 2009 year on June 27, and says that in the fourth quarter it saw a gut …

    Channel Register 11 Aug 14:11

  • Sex Offenders returns to iTunes

    Vigilante-friendly app back after short break

    Days after being pulled for undisclosed reasons, the Offender Locator is back on iTunes, bringing relief to paranoid parents across the USA, except in California. Offender Locator appeared in the iTunes store last week priced at 59 pence, and was swiftly pulled a few days later, possibly on the grounds that charging for …

    Mobile 11 Aug 14:16

  • Orbital refuelling stations could rescue NASA Mars plans

    Shiny tinfoil cones to fight 'boil-off'

    US rocket makers have suggested that plans for interplanetary exploration - imperilled by a forecast lack of funds following recent economic problems and a new administration in Washington - could be saved by the use of orbital "propellant depots" or space fuelling stations. Aviation Week, reporting from an aerospace …

    Space 11 Aug 14:30

  • GM Volt to deliver three-figure fuel economy

    Leccy Tech Officially, 230 miles on a US gallon of fuel

    A rather curious advert featuring the number 23 and a smiling power socket has appeared in North America over the past few weeks. Until today, nobody knew what it meant. GM's Volt: first three-digit fuel economy rating? During a webcast today, General Motors’ President, Fritz Henderson, explained that 230 is the official …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 14:44

  • Intel fixes flash and flashes 3-bit NAND

    Solves its 'embarrassing problem'

    Intel has fixed the BIOS password bug in its new 34nm NAND chips and has also introduced 3-bits per cell 34nm process chips. The bug affected users of Intel's X25-M and X18M 34nm process NAND chips. If they set and then amended a BIOS password in any way, the data on the chip became unavailable. A downloadable firmware fix, …

    PCs & Chips 11 Aug 15:39

  • Websense yanks censorware from Yemen

    Filter spat highlights repressive regime dilemma

    Websense has blocked two ISPs in Yemen from receiving updates after it emerged that they were using its filtering technology in a government-mandated censorship scheme. The OpenNet Initiative, a pressure group that identifies and documents Internet filtering and surveillance, found that YemenNet and TeleYemen/Y.Net were using …

    Enterprise Security 11 Aug 16:12

  • Amazon prices up Zune HD

    Shipping next month?

    Amazon has revealed how much you'll have to shell out for Microsoft’s upcoming Zune HD media player. Amazon's Zune HD prices The player will be available in two flavours: a $220 (£133/€155), 16GB model and a $290 (£175/€204) version with a 32GB storage capacity, Amazon’s US website states. The player hasn’t been inked for …

    Reg Hardware 11 Aug 17:02

  • SpecEx celebrates $8m of trades

    But re-farming is what it's all about

    Some $8m of radio spectrum has passed through the hands of SpecEx, the on-line trading floor of Spectrum Bridge, creating new uses and owners for dark spectrum. Florida-based Spectrum Bridge's radio-frequency trading floor was launched back in September last year with a view to playing matchmaker between those who own unused …

    Wireless 11 Aug 19:11

  • NEC punts 0% financing, deferred payments

    Americans get cheaper iron loans

    Following in the footsteps of the indigenous server makers in the United States, Japanese box peddler NEC has launched zero per cent financing and deferred payment offers for buyers in North America willing to do a deal now, rather than waiting until the economy improves. By offering low-cost or deferred payment financing, …

    Servers 11 Aug 19:13

  • Penguin puts Linux supercomputer in sky

    Updated InfiniBand with wings

    Hitching a ride on that ubiquitous cloud metaphor, Penguin Computing has unveiled a Linux supercomputer in the sky. Today, the San Francisco-based outfit announced the debut of what it calls Penguin on Demand - POD, for short - a service that offers remote access to high-performance computing (HPC) Linux clusters. The idea is …

    HPC 11 Aug 19:24

  • LiMo drives new phones from Panasonic, NEC

    Chasing Androids

    The LiMo Foundation wants you to know that the rise of Google's Android has not made its mobile Linux OS thoroughly irrelevant. Today, the Foundation announced that NEC and Panasonic have released nine new mobile phones based on the LiMo Platform, to be offered by Japan's largest wireless-services provider, NTT DoCoMo. …

    Mobile 11 Aug 19:45

  • Sun sets on Solaris Express Community Edition

    It's OpenSolaris from here on out

    Despite the public-relations muzzle on employees at Sun Microsystems these days, the OpenSolaris project has announced that it will discontinue the Solaris Express Community Edition distro of the Solaris Unix variant. According to the posting on the OpenSolaris site, Sun will stop spinning Solaris Express Community Edition "by …

    Operating Systems 11 Aug 19:52

  • Amazon teaches cloud to speak Pig Latin

    Adoophay orfay ethay assesmay

    Amazon has taught its cloud to speak Pig Latin. In April, Jeff Bezos and company unveiled a new web service based on Hadoop, the open-source phenomenon that seeks to mimic MapReduce, the distributed data-crunching platform that drives Google's online infrastructure. And today, Amazon announced that its Elastic MapReduce …

    Developer 11 Aug 21:24

  • Opera chief warns on equal access to Windows services

    IE door opener

    Microsoft might be closer to a compromise with browser rival regarding Internet Explorer on Windows, but access to key online services for PCs could be the next hurdle. Opera Software chief executive told The Reg he welcomed Microsoft’s offer last month to give European PC users a choice of browsers on Windows, but he warned …

    Applications 11 Aug 22:01

  • Hackintosher emerges from bankruptcy

    And that's the bad news

    The on-again, off-again slugfest between Apple and Hackintosher Psystar has taken yet another turn - and this one puts the feisty Floridians in a bit of a bind. The US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida has granted Psystar's request to dismiss its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. But there's a twist: The …

    PCs & Chips 11 Aug 22:07